


misfortune comes in threes

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Science, F/F, it isnt falling in or out of love if we were never in love, it isnt w/benefits if the only benefit is our bad decisions, what did we get out of this anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-07 06:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12835362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: It turned out that Angela’s exhausted laugh — a little rough, short and low — was the most honest of the laughs she had.The beginning, the middle and the end.





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I transgress it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me. -- Hippocratic Oath

Angela Ziegler had beautiful hands but the first time Moira saw them, it was hard to tell. Thick blood coagulated between her fingers and fell from her fingertips in big ugly globs. The hair that Moira would later learn was always meticulously pulled back, bangs parted in the exact same place (probably, within a centimeter, day to day) was cascading down her shoulders, getting caught in the fragments of bone and viscera hanging down her shoulders and front. Most remarkably, however, was the contrast between Angela’s eyes and mouth. Her eyes were wide, shock, horror, concern, the kind of bewildered look a civilian might have. But her mouth was set in a grim line, and the orders she gave were concise, clipped, professional. When she said, you there, pinch the artery — here, fingers right, dig in and don’t let go, his life depends on it — Moira didn’t reply that she knew that, that she wasn’t a student or a fool, that there was no need to look down on her, she knew enough about the human body to know when life was fleeting and brief — instead she did as told, wedged her hand down inside the torn flesh that used to be an arm and took the vessel from Angela, forefinger and thumb pressing together as hard as she could. It hadn’t been enough, of course. Angela only had her hands, torn ribbons of a sweater, her pocket knife and the few bystanders she could rope into trying to save the man’s life. The bomb had torn up the sidewalk, the metal of a street sign, destroyed his entire right side and the traffic in the city meant that it took the emergency vehicles an extra twenty-five seconds. It only takes twenty seconds to a human to bleed out. When the body bag was zipped, Angela sat down on the curb, blood in various stages of drying soaking her, sticking to her, flaking off in red dust. And she cried. Moira sat next to her, silent for a moment, before extending her hand — the same one that had tried to help save the man’s life — _you could use a shower and stiff drink after this little bit of trouble._ It turned out that Angela’s exhausted laugh — a little rough, short and low — was the most honest of the laughs she had.

A shower, at the hospital where Angela was working, a change of clothes, time to compose herself and Angela looked like a different woman when she introduced herself. _Angela Ziegler, thank you and, it’s nice to meet you._ Her nails were immaculate, her hands had surprising callouses not just where Moira would expect them but workman’s rough spots just as unexpected as the pair of glasses she slipped on, _Near-sighted, but something I’m working on._ There was just enough of a conspirator’s tone to her voice that Moira felt immediately welcomed. Even if by comparison her fingers were too long for their handshake, Angela’s smaller palm didn’t fit correctly, fingers curling slightly against the heel of Moira’s palm. _Moira O'Deorain, a pleasure._

* * *

Moira O’Deorain was a collection of bad habits. There was the way she stretched, long arms reaching up and her nails almost touching the ceiling and just seeing her arms raise out of the corner of her eye made Angela brace for the possibility of the scratch of nails against the polished steel ceilings of the lab. The way that she drank her coffee black with a single egg whisked in for creaminess which, while a completely valid way to drink coffee, Angela felt a thin shudder every time she heard a shell crack against the break room table. The smell of mulling spice, baked apples and a trade of whisky and smoke trailed after Moira in the winter and rainy spring seasons. The way she presented her research, confidence and excitement underneath the absolution in her voice. The keen interest she had when Angela spoke on her own work — how Moira asked all the right questions and knew far too much about the moral obligation of using their advancements to help people.

The worst, perhaps, was the collection of bad habits Angela acquired while working with her. She had worked hard to compose herself, to slip into the ranks of older and often male scientists and doctors. She had a degree, she had the brains and determination to be their peer. She always dressed her best, sharply, made sure nothing was out of place and that people saw her exactly how she wished to be seen. Never in her life had she felt the need to bow and scrape for someone else’s approval, but Moira’s direct confidence, her drive and her fearlessness in pursuit of her science was something else entirely. Angela felt herself get drawn along, a little. A little more reckless, a little louder at conference meetings. She pushed herself a little harder, moved in larger leaps and bounds. She got a little sloppy.

Like sledding down a hill, momentum carried her forward, the surroundings becoming less and less focused, the goal at the bottom and the speed of her journey were the only things she paid attention to.

And she hated it. She tried to find her grounding in guidelines, in the way that Moira’s shoelaces were always slightly uneven, the way her right hand had a slight tremor to it when she poured coffee or held beakers and test tubes. The way Moira understated things — wee, little, small, troubles, inconveniences interruptions (and she tried not to think of the way she did similar, because the magnitude of the evils in the world couldn’t be given so much power and fear).

* * *

Neither of them enjoyed interruptions. Angela worked in a perfect constrained way. She wasted no movements, she stayed still, standing for hours over a single formula or idea until she needed to move. Moira had seen her stay at the same station for 12 hours straight — and she was certain, there had been times where Angela had stood over the same patient for days. Moira was more fluid, less likely to stagnate, but she was quiet. It wasn’t quite companionable, Angela had a way of shutting out the world around her when she worked that resembled paintings of biblical judgment, a shrewd eye and unwavering hand. Moira had never really desired to make friends with her peers, an easy going atmosphere had yet give sufficient data that casual conversation provided any bonus to her work. There were only a few other scientists who could keep up with either of them and there were times when Moira had to remember Angela was a decade younger, a veritable prodigy in their line of work.

Idle chatter in the lab was suppressed by their joint atmosphere of focus, but the occasional visitor or newcomer would try to break through. Conversations about the weather, about the state of the world, politics, or the desire to understand and get to know them. 

“Tell me about your parents.” Later, Moira would forget his name. A busybody of a scientist who had been sent by some politician somewhere. Theoretically a genius, theoretically with many papers under his belt and a keen eye on the history of genetics and monkeys. Something something. She despised his interference, but Angela had kept the atmosphere carefully balanced. A polite smile in the morning, one at lunch, she rationed out her etiquette in the same careful titration she pursued in her work.

“My parents were kind people, they wanted to give the gift of peace to the world.” Angela spoke slowly, her voice dropped a little in volume. “They’re no longer with us, but their impact can still be felt.” She set the folder of paper she had been reading on the table with a careful thump.

“Ah. . . I’m sorry, I forgot. Their contributions will never be forgotten. And, er, Miss O’Deorain?”

Moira didn’t bother to correct him — Angela would have and did on their first meeting, emphasizied the _Doctor_ in a way to make it stick — instead she looked down at him and simply asked, “Did you have any relevant questions, or are you simply here to be a noisy distraction?”

He fled, an excuse for a lunch break and in the silence after his departure Angela asked: “I must say, he’s an idiot but my curiosity is piqued.”

“Not all the gifts our parents gave us were something to be celebrated.” Moira replied dryly, “But we live with them nonetheless.”

* * *

Angela stopped wearing glasses — she only ever wore them late at night, when the exhaustion of the day forced her to stoop over her work, but they never again made an appearance. It was notable to Moira because Angela looked younger in her glasses. They were unflattering, too big and round, the rims a tarnished bronze color, the lenses always smudged in the lower left where she tended to pinch at them with her fingers to readjust them on her face.

A month after she stopped wearing glasses, Moira found at the bottom of Angela’s notes a small diagram. A formula, the delicate equation. Regeneration underlined twice.

* * *

The red in Moira’s right eye appeared gradually. Angela noticed the speck on a Tuesday. The small pin point of red like a drop of blood ringed in a dull brown. By the following week it had leeched to encircle her iris. It gave her eye a muddy look, the red and brown and blue warring with each other. Angela found herself setting her jaw when she spoke to Moira, tilting her head up a little more, she found herself focused on that changing eye.

“Fancy yourself a closer look?” Moira asked, finally, curved down closer to Angela’s face. They locked eyes and while Moira hadn’t truly expected Angela to step back, she did expect some kind of flinch. Or a change in Angela’s demeanor.

“I can see fine where I am.” Angela replied and took one half-step forward. It placed her foot between Moira’s and even though her face was slightly upturned, Moira got the impression it was Angela who was looking down at her. “But, I should be asking you that. How are you, Moira?”

It was an unspoken rule in their work that they never asked that. There was no emotional sharing between them. Angela was polite. She asked etiquette questions, she kept her tone even, she had the perfect bedside manner. Moira didn’t share her enthusiasm for playing nice, but their dismissal of small talk was a relief. 

“Moving into uncharted territory today, are we?”

Angela clicked her tongue in response, mild disapproval. “For a woman of science there’s quite a lot you haven’t seem to grasped.”

“Care to elaborate? I’ll need a little more evidence before I propose my hypothesis.” It was as close to teasing as she ever got. 

“Interested in an all nighter?” Angela stepped away then, her hands found her lab coat pockets. The look she tossed over her shoulder back at Moira, eyes drifting from the corner of Moira’s mouth up to that right eye. “I think I’m close.”

“Who could turn down that offer?” Moira replied, dryly. “A new twist to our mundane lives.”

“A little uncharted, even.” And Angela winked, even.

The normal business day ended at five, their normal day ended around seven. By eight, the atmosphere loosened. Angela was more active, flitted from work station to station, took furious notes and even muttered under her breath. There was an earnestness on her features that she never showed at work.

By ten, Moira had learned several new German words and Angela had discarded her heels to pace in her nylons. Moira also learned that Angela could crack her big toe at a rate of four times a minute, which was an awfully lot of annoying popping and cracking noises in the hour.

Midnight hit and Angela had a new appreciation for Moira’s sharp mind and exceptional height. They cleared the top shelves above the burners, reorganized the entire lab, left notes and diagrams in different physical locations to try and stimulate a breakthrough. Angela also gained a fresh irritation for Moira’s confidence, the angles of her shoulders, the way that if she leaned over a workbench she eclipsed just enough light to be inconvenient.

Four in the morning, Angela knocked over a stack of books and stared at the trail they left on the floor and laughed. It was the first time that Moira had heard her laugh since their first meeting — open, exhausted and a little giddy — and decided it was not quite as good.

Six in the morning and Moira held a prism — they found it in the bottom of an old unused desk, a trinket of days way past, just a trianglular shape cut into some kind of plastic — up to the window where the sun was beginning to stream in. Pale yellow cut with grass green and blue danced on the floor, light broken by the primitive prism. Newer models — new toys for kids in this age — could create entire patterns with purposeful sharp edges, repeating patterns of shards of light or even swirls and concentric circles. 

Angela almost fell out of her chair. Instead she grabbed her glass of water — only a few tablespoons remained and she jammed her hand into the glass to wet her fingers and then flick them. Beads of water traveled through the air and for a brief moment were suspended in the broken light from the prism.

“Brilliant.” Angela whispered and in a moment she was writing. She scribbled out notes, grabbed for files and beakers, both her hands frantically moved over the scraps of their work. Moira could only set the prism down, sit across from Angela and read the notes upside down.

Photophiliac nanites could be guided without wide dispersal and losing their potency. A way for field medicine — for all medicine, really — to be less traumatic, less invasive but easy to ‘direct’. Moira drummed her fingernails on the table and at eight in the morning turned slightly away to begin her own writing.

By ten, Angela had slowed. She had stacks of papers and had begun on drafting plans, designs and the mechanics behind her new system. But instead of the breakneck pace she had carried on for several hours before, her wrist dragged on the paper as she wrote and she yawned more than she spoke.

“I need a pick me up.” She declared, pushed her chair away from the desk and stood. Her hair tumbled out of the style she normally pinned it up in and while no dark circles showed under her eyes, she kept blinking in slow motion. Before Moira could suggest (perhaps, a little sarcastically) the break room coffee, Angela continued on: “Digits opens early.”

Moira raised an eyebrow. Digits was a lounge that she herself frequented on occasion — quiet, out of the way with dim lights but an air of professionalism. More ’no questions asked’ than Moira would have assumed the good doctor Ziegler was a patron of.

“Well, let me treat you as celebration then.” 

When Moira extended her hand to Angela to shake, her last two fingers twitched, curled uncontrollably. As if she didn’t see it, Angela took her hand, warmly, gripped briefly.

“Thank you, Dr. O’Deorain.”

Angela did not drink in moderation. At ten thirty in the morning she took pints with reckless abandon. After five drinks had proven to not phase her Moira considered, actually, that in the time she had known her, Angela’s features hadn’t changed. Her hair was the same length, the roundness of her cheeks and lips unchanged — they did not even get chapped in the cold weather.

“What’s your secret, care to share with another scientist?” Moira asked, without lead in. She wouldn’t patronize Angela by pretending she hadn’t been staring.

“I’m a doctor first, scientist second.” Angela replied firmly, quickly.

“A bleeding heart first, brain second, yes, I understand that much of you.” A comment that was meant to cut casually, but instead it brought a quiet laugh out of Angela. Not a drunken one, as Moira would have expected, but high, soft, lilting — a magazine laugh.

“A little politeness goes far in our line of work.” Angela steepled her fingers around her glass — a cocktail this time, ocean blue with dots of red jellies and egg white foam — “As does, do no harm to others.”

“We can’t all be angels,” Moira mused. She had nursed her own modest two drinks over the same time Angela had begun on her sixth. “The look doesn’t suit me, I’m afraid.”

“Too brash.” Angela corrected, “Or headstrong. You could give the commander a run for his money. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else is already considering that. . .”

“Is that a warning or a threat, Ziegler?”

“Neither.” Angela said, but her expression entirely unreadable, ordered her seventh drink and turned the topic to alloys, containers, the benefits of a higher concentration of nanites versus a lower one.


	2. The Middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arzt, hilf dir selber!  
>  _Physician, heal thyself!_

Angela Ziegler’s first paper in two years to be published was on the long term consequences of war medicine on the human body. Humans were not meant to be torn apart and put back together again, she wrote and made a very thinly veiled plea for continued efforts towards peace keeping and away from arms races. However, the last section of her paper also posed the question, if there was a less invasive and less traumatic way to heal, to repair injury and to return the human body back to its healthy state — would that only open the doors further for more war?

* * *

Moira drove fast — she had once had an old style car, one with wheels and every imperfection in the road had sent the vehicle hiccuping across the landscape. Not quite flying, not quite rolling along the road, more like a bit of both and twice as dangerous. She missed the classic vehicles, ones that let you feel the world when you drove but she also accepted the new hovercraft for the way they collected speed in a way the older vehicles hadn’t been capable of.

Angela drove faster — with the correct urging. Moira hadn’t meant to provoke her that much, really, but they had both wanted to get to the conference earlier. But Angela had commented on Moira’s driving, too chaotic and it would hardly do if they were pulled over, that would certainly be counter to getting there early.

So Moira had handed the wheel over, challenged her to drive as she wished without getting any attention. Angela had started exactly at the speed limit with a precision to staying right on the number that even Moira was impressed but — it was hard not to, with Angela’s face composed in the perfection expression — she couldn’t resist provoking her, a little.

“It’s amazing how much you get done with that restraint.”

“I should thank you for shouldering the burden of our tardiness.”

“I could be making a wagon joke right now.”

After the fifth round or so, Angela turned towards Moira, she took her eyes off the road and met the other woman’s smirking gaze with a profoundly angelic smile.

“Silence is golden.” She said. It wasn’t even a counter to Moira’s arguments, but it felt like a bait regardless. And then Angela stepped down on the pedal and the car shot forward. The internal balancers kept it from being a rocky acceleration, the only way Moira felt the change in speed was the way the scenery started to blur together.

The vehicle shot around corners, floating just delicately up on the slight curves of the road and Angela wove it in and out of side streets with the practice of someone who had the city map memorized.

“What an unexpected development.” Moira commented.

“You get a good view of the city, from above.”

“Ainglean chuala sinn gu h-ard.”

They made it to the conference with plenty of time to spare.

* * *

Moira O’Deorain was a mistake. Angela knew it after her tenth cocktail at the post presentation mixer where everyone rubbed elbows and made nice and tried to snoop on everyone else’s work. Angela let herself be flattered, let tall men with shrewd eyes tell her she was so smart for being so young and so pretty. She resisted the urge to quip back that they were so narrow minded for being so old and worldly — just barely. It was an unfortunate trait that she and the commander shared, an ability to play the game by instinct and privilege. It didn’t mean she found it preferable.

She made her own mistake by finding some sanctuary in Moira’s impenetrable aura of not-at-all veiled insults — of her own comfort in bantering with the other woman. When Moira leaned over, a less than professional distance, and said _you look as angelic as we all know you are_ Angela felt no need to hold back her own response, _not everyone dresses for the devil’s workshop._

Moira did not lean back. She raised a hand, placed it on the wall adjacent to Angela’s head and the confident grin only changed to taunting. She was too gaunt to block the room, to properly box Angela in, but she did achieve the looming effect she wanted. 

“Did you get tired of mingling with _them_?” The lean on the word ‘them’ wasn’t malicious — she had explained it before, dryly, that some people were simply further behind in the evolutionary process than others.

“Did you even try?” 

“Don’t pretend it amounts to anything.”

“Not everyone is out to tear down everyone around them.”

“Oh, Angela, what happened? When we first met you were so much more polite.”

Angela smiled in response, her teeth showing slightly.

“Are you trying to admonish me about manners without correcting your own? Though we both know you’ve been trying too hard to correct your own flaws.” 

The right corner of Moira’s lips twitched, just under the red eye that looked so out of place on her face, now. Angela didn’t look down but she could imagine an echoing fidget had tremored through Moira’s hand.

“Progress is progress.”

“Two steps forward, three back is hardly progress.”

“Try looking at it from the ground up for once, angel.” Moira set her glass on a passing waiter’s tray, that freed up her other hand so she could attempt to box Angela in even more. Her angular shoulders and elbows created an effective curtain.

Moira O’Deorain was a mistake. Angela lifted her chin in increments, refused to just focus on the red eye, met both with defiance. The wall was a pace behind her, and Moira one in front. She did not retreat. She stepped forward, grasped the crimson tie that Moira had let hang loose in front of her dark wine colored shirt (almost black) and wrapped the length of it around her hand.

“Auf einen groben Klotz gehört ein grober Keil.”

Moira threw her head back and laughed. The entire party turned to look at them — Angela carefully extracting herself from Moira’s arms, one hand still gripped Moira’s tie, the thin stemmed cocktail glass in her other hand. 

The rumors flew fast and thick, especially when Moira O’Deorain published a paper a week later that seemed to lean heavily on Angela Ziegler’s research. Only instead of posing the question on healing, it asked something much more frightening: if the base element is flawed, if humanity is a dead end on evolution, then how do we change the origin to be better?

Footnote, is it morally sound to ‘correct’ genetic diseases, ‘deficiencies’ and ‘weaknesses.’

Footnote, despite years of research the genome is hardly complete, and we admit that a gene sequence can be manipulated but the result may be unpredictable.

Footnote, are forced mutations better than the original flawed human code?

* * *

It should not have been a surprise that Angela had not only designed her own Valkyrie suit but also the small side arm that went with it, but Moira still had to look twice when she saw Angela at the shooting range. The pistol was more squat than the average hand-held, with a slow reload and the pellets it fired hardly looked powerful. Moira herself had only been passing through — she had interest in ballistics, particularly ricochet and shrapnel — but stopped to watch. The gun offered little to no recoil and could be tucked into the back of the Valkyrie suit, exchanged for the healing staff in one gesture. The staff was brilliant, made of flexible links that could lay in the spine of the suit but with a touch it could be released and made rigid, carrying the much needed ‘healing beam’ out to its targets. A bit of a waste, really, but brilliant.

“A pacifist learning to shoot, will wonders never cease.” She called out.

Angela turned and the pistol moved in a smooth motion, from target to point at Moira — too low to be the head, too low to be the heart. A non-fatal shot, if fired.

“I’m hardly naive.”

“Appearances _can_ be deceiving.”

“That’s true. I had taken you for a scientist with a sound mind and theory, how little I knew. My mistake.” Angela holstered the pistol, tucked it back into the suit. The ridiculous wings made an equally ridiculous shimmering sound. 

“Pettiness doesn’t become you. It really goes against that angelic imagery you’ve worked so hard to create.”

“Have you considered even once that there’s a greater good to be served? Besides your own selfishness.”

“Have _you_ considered the progress which humanity could be making right now? Of course not, despite your brilliant mind — I’m not above admitting it — you’re trapped by the same bars as the neanderthals around us.”

“What is that, Moira? Ethics? Compassion? An understanding of how community works and trying to make sure that we’re not just a society of violent… what would you say, oh right, guinea pigs who are caught up in our own ego?” Angela’s tone became sharper as she spoke, bitterness making her normally sweet tone rough.

“You should wear this face more often, truth is becoming of you.”

“You should try having a real conversation sometime, it might show you something you don’t know.”

* * *

“Your eye could have been repaired, you didn’t have to lose it.” Angela mentioned, it was her own way of striking back after Moira’s betrayal. She had picked at such things before — the way that the purple veining stood out in Moira’s right hand, the way that the tremors had subsided but been replaced by slightly discolored flesh. Before, Angela would politely ignore any misstep Moira made, as it had been obvious to the doctor what the slide of ligaments and tendons would do to someone’s gait. She didn’t hold back, now. “A dislocated lens is child’s play to a doctor these days.”

“I would imagine that you should understand wanting to control your own body, Dr. Ziegler.” Most of Angela’s barbs fell short. Moira had cut her academic teeth on her own sharpness. It was a welcome change from their previous somewhat-companion silence, however. There was no more illusions of Angela Ziegler, darling of the scientific community. War, after-war, struggle, tenuous peace, special projects that sent Angela off for weeks only to come back exasperated with the state of the world — and, of course, Moira’s own prodding — had sent Angela to a more bitter place.

In a way, they both knew, it was a relief. There was no illusion between them. Angela distinctly disliked Moira, felt betrayed by her and was aware of the slippery slope that Moira represented and offered. Progress, science, achievement, a pioneering of science outside of the expected. A rebellion. And Moira knew that Angela despised her, but found something unique in their work together, their shared space. Moira tired of Angela’s speeches, her _angelic_ appearance even when paired with a sharp tongue and the fact that there was something that drew her forward. She was pushed by Angela’s own restraint, somehow.

“It isn’t right, what you do to yourself.” Angela admonished, as if she cared. Moira had to wonder if perhaps Angela did care, somewhere under her self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

“Pot, kettle. Sulfur and heavenly clouds. Same difference.” Moira dryly shot back.

“If you had any self-control, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a problem.”

“Is that where we’ve landed? Power is only good in the hands of the pious? Is that why you’re obsessed with looking like an angel? Or is it that your hoping those in heaven will welcome you in?”

“Do you only look to the end?”

“Oh no, I’m always looking at potential. And yours is sorely wasted.”

“Are you looking at potential, or power?”

“Aren’t they one in the same?”

Angela didn’t slam the sheaf of files. She shuffled them, set them to the table, perfectly flush with each other. Disapproval, and a little pity — that Moira hated — was in her expression.

“It’s a shame you won’t ever amount to more than this.”

“Oh, watch me, _angel._ ”

* * *

Blackwatch called to them both. It called Angela earlier, however. She spent over a week working on Genji Shimada’s body. She did not leave the Blackwatch infirmary, the Blackwatch laboratory or the Blackwatch barracks in that time. Before that, she had worked on Genji’s contract, cajoling him because it was her job and offering him more than what he had before. She answered his questions earnestly, brutally honest, told him it was an exchange his life for a service — an unfair exchange. But she knew (and so had everyone involved) that he had only continued living after his brother had brutalized him because of a deep seated rage that had more history than just that event behind it.

On the last day of Angela’s work — Genji’s body was done, he was alive, he had signed the contract — and on the day of her refusal to continue offering her services to Blackwatch, Moira O’Deorain was made the same offer. A doctor was needed, but moreso than a doctor, Blackwatch wanted an innovator. Blackwatch wanted someone who could repair things but also remake them. Angela Ziegler was a first option — she was successful. Moira O’Deorain was a close candidate, while her work could not be repeated, her ambition far outstripped Ziegler’s — both candidates were informed of that. Angela’s reply had been short and concise, _then hire Dr. O’Deorain._ And Moira’s, just as direct, _Then I’ll surpass Ziegler’s stagnant moral highground._

She was exhausted.

She was elated.

Angela let herself sit on the floor of the laboratory, her gloves cast aside, her white coat smudged in blood and oil. At some point during the operation she tore her finger open on a stray wire and even after sealing the cut shut, she could still feel it sting, a kind of phantom pain that cut through her tiredness.

Moira sauntered in, the new Blackwatch keycard held in her hand. Angela looked up at her and couldn’t help but to let out a short laugh.

“Couldn’t resist, could you?” She asked.

Moira’s good mood was not to be deterred, especially not by an accusation that spoke to nothing but the truth. She grinned, teeth showing on purpose. “And you had to refuse, shame, Blackwatch is really going to places. Science holds the key to our futures, remember that.”

“Do you really want to do this right now?” Angela groused. She was tense, pushed to the edge and had spent too long justifying her actions this week. A life saved could change the world. She wasn’t stupid, she understood the larger goals, the fact that the Shimada clan had to be — either eliminated or changed. She had been a combat medic for a long time, she had no illusions about lives lost. She had, herself, killed people.

She had only, truly, wanted to do the best she could.

“Oh, Angela, I’m here for a trade. I’ll give you something you want too.” It sounded like a deal with the devil. Angela rolled her eyes, used her wrist to push her hair out of her eyes and met Moira’s mismatched gaze.

“And what’s that?”

Moira leaned down, smug, “A moment of honesty.”

“And what do you want?”

“Just to see it, how our guardian angel looks without her wings on.”

While Moira meant it as a taunt, Angela could only take it as it was, another contract with its ups and downs. And she had spent hours up to her elbows in a body that was more wires than blood, had held onto Genji’s heart with her hands and had pushed past any doubt because Genji had told her that he wanted to live.

“Show me what you’ve got then, Doctor O’Deorain.” Angela replied.

Moira had all intentions to make Angela plead. It had entered her head, upon seeing the other woman sitting on the floor. A sort of perverse joke about angels falling and how finally, Angela’s pride and pious aloofness would break. (She had genuinely, also, wanted to see Angela’s honesty again. What had been years ago, their first meeting and first memory of her with her hand stained in blood, exhausted and real. That Angela had been highly preferable to the untouchable ‘Mercy’ of Overwatch.)

But Angela had made the first move, despite Moira’s lean and leer, it had been Angela who once again grasped Moira’s tie and pulled her down. But instead of simply meeting her eyes and showing her backbone of steel she kissed her. 

Angela’s lips were chapped, she hadn’t bothered to remake her face and her hand that graced over the back of Moira’s neck was covered in the fine powder that lined the inside of latex gloves. Moira’s right hand was colder than her left, she didn’t bother to warm it before she slid it up under Angela’s shirt. Moira dropped to her knees, let her legs bump against the hard tile and straddled Angela’s lap. Angela did not let go of Moira’s tie. It tightened and tightened, and Angela pushed and pushed, it was her that invaded Moira’s mouth, not the other way around.

And, it was Moira who had to break the kiss, sit back and circle her fingers around Angela’s wrist.

“So — “ She began, a taunt and an invitation, but Angela interrupted her.

“Thank you for the offer, but I’ve seen what I need to. Perhaps, at a later date.” And only then did Angela release her hold on Moira’s tie. She smoothed down her shirt and while, for a brief moment, she leaned forward so their bodies pressed together she then added, “Please, excuse me.”

“You’re a real chancer, aren’t you?” Moira laughed and slowly stood.

“I’m very busy and very tired.” Angela replied. She also stood, leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes. 

“Some other time.” 

“Perhaps.”

* * *

Occasionally, Angela dreamed about fast cars — the old fashioned kind with wheels. She dreamed about going so fast she flew. A little dangerous, a little thrilling. The sky above was always cloudy, though.


End file.
